Life Insurance Retirement Plan

Understanding Life Insurance Retirement Plans

When it comes to planning for your retirement, security means everything. Whether you are looking to secure a reliable stream of income during your retirement or to provide for your loved ones after you’re gone, Secure Retirement Strategies can plan for a brighter future. Our team of expert financial professionals is passionate about helping individuals and families achieve their retirement goals.

Our company currently offers strategic financial planning services to residents living in and around the following Pennsylvania and New Jersey counties:

Chester County, PA

Lehigh County, PA

Northampton County, PA

Bucks County, PA

Mercer County, NJ

Hunterdon County, NJ

What is a LIRP and Why You Should Own One?

A Life Insurance Retirement Plan (LIRP) is a very powerful, yet pretty basic, financial planning tool that has been used in the financial planning industry for decades. Unlike traditional life insurance plans, a LIRP is a life insurance plan that features a savings component that allows you to withdraw funds while you’re still alive. A LIRP can be used to:

Create a self-completing retirement plan.

Provide supplemental tax-free retirement income.

Avoid the threat of higher income taxes in the future.

Address estate tax issues at death and paying off debts.

Guarantee what you want to happen financially in life will happen whether you are here or not.

Provide access to funds that may be earmarked for retirement purposes.

Pay for college without being disqualified from financial aid.

Address your long-term care needs.

How Taxes Affect LIRPs

If you are like most people that are saving for the future, you have accumulated a good portion of your wealth in two of the three investment buckets. These are the taxable and tax-deferred buckets. While many investors are aware of how important it is to invest funds in these buckets, they do not account for the impact that higher taxes will have on diminishing all of the wealth you have gained. It is important to include the third bucket, the tax-free investment, in your plan.

In the United States, things such as federal government spending on social welfare programs, our national debt, and the large numbers of baby boomers exiting the workforce, are set to cause our tax rates are to skyrocket. To combat these issues, many Americans are in fact turning to tax-free accumulation and distribution tools like a Life Insurance Retirement Plan as a way of avoiding the impact of raising taxes.

LIRPs Vs. Roth IRAs

Let’s take a 30,000-foot view of what a Life Insurance Retirement Plan is. A Life Insurance Retirement Plan is an accumulation and distribution tool that shares many of the tax-free attributes as a Roth IRA but without many of the restrictions. When you design a LIRP properly, it gives you many desirable features of which include no income limitations. Remember the IRS imposes income limitations on who can put money in a Roth IRA, but a LIRP has no contribution limits. Furthermore, with the LIRP, you will not get any 1099’s issued, so your money gets to grow tax-free.

How the Stock Market Affects LIRPs

Typically with the LIRP, when the index is positive, you participate up to about 12.5%. When the index is negative, you get zero. You do not give back or lose any money. The LIRP has an average return of between 7% and 9% per year.

Furthermore, you can typically use 95% of the death benefit for long-term care or chronic illness. Every year at the policy’s anniversary date, you can change indexes if you’d like. If you ever need to skip premiums, you can do so, and the LIRP comes with a lapse guarantee rider so you cannot lapse the coverage.

Why Chose a LIRP?

We like to tell people a Life Insurance Retirement Plan is a Roth IRA plus more. Typically, we like to put the money in a LIRP over a five year period instead of all at once. This ensures that we don’t buy too much death benefit or move you into a higher tax bracket.

In our professional opinion, the LIRP is a excellent financial tool to have in your financial planning strategy. It provides tax-free income, a death benefit for legacy, long-term care coverage, no 1099’s and does not hit your tax return —it’s definitely a win-win for those who chose to invest.

Ready to Start Planning?

Let us help you plan for a prosperous financial future! Contact us today to learn more about Life Insurance Retirement Plans and our retirement strategies such as:

These guys are good. Don't expect a sales pitch. Instead, you'll get a team that listens, evaluates your life situation and makes recommendations that match your needs. I'm retired with a nice nest egg that I thought I could manage alone. I spent a year attending meetings sponsored by other companies. I met with Fred & the A Team who identified several shortcomings, including the lack of a plan for long term health care. They presented options in simple terms that even I could understand. It was an easy decision to go with SRS. Take some time to talk to them.

R Parisi

23:03 16 Mar 20

We used SRS for some of our retirement accounts. They were fantastic! We started with one of those seminars at a local restaurant and just wanted to listen. They presented very interesting options and gave us the feeling they were focused on our needs and not their commissions. When we then visited and started the process they were very clear and easy to understand and work with. We are very happy with where we ended up and feel they have met all of our needs. We even beat this latest downturn and are safe from it! We also loved the fact of absolutely NO pressure to invest and all of our questions were answered completely and in easy to understand terminology before any discussion of what investments would work best for our specific needs. Loved how the entire process was streamlined to our individual investment goals.

Christine Cleaver

18:40 12 Mar 20

Excellent, professional staff with keen insights on steps to take for securing our financial future. Ultimately, the decisions were (and will continue to be) all ours, but Lou and Merrick answered all our questions and armed us with the tools and guidance to make the right ones for us based on our situation and goals. Their excellent knowledge base on markets, indices and strategies is helping us "stay ahead of the curve" post-retirement, which means our family also wins in the end.

Kathy Field

15:39 25 Feb 20

My husband and I first met this group through one of their dinner invitations and we are very happy we did. We were curious what this group could offer versus our 1 man financial provider. Everyone we have dealt with are professional and very knowledgeable with the products they recommend. Knowing very little of the investment world, they were able to explain the investment products to us in terms we could understand. And it is comforting that they have staff of all ages to help us many years in the future, which was one of our concerns. We highly recommend their group and look forward to working with them for many years to come.

Nischint Manelkar

21:35 12 Feb 20

The staff at SRS, particularly George M. and Tom Y., were fantastic. They presented themselves as knowledgeable and courteous throughout the process with them, which included multiple meetings. All our questions were answered and no stones were left unturned. In addition, it was refreshing to not have to sit through a high pressure sales pitch. Given the quality of their advisory services, no sales pitch was needed, simply the facts and helpful recommendations. Highly recommend these folks to help plan your retirement!

Duke Wright

12:51 06 Feb 20

From the very beginning I've been impressed with the entire staff at SRS. They were all very patient, knowledgeable, accommodating and obviously had my best interest in mind. They lead me through the maze of Indexed Annuities and created personalized options that suited and coincided with my retirement goals. It's been a pleasure working with each and every individual and without hesitation I would highly recommend this group of financial professionals.

James Stenella

13:55 31 Jul 19

I was comfortable from day 1 with Merrick & Mike. I experienced patience and understanding with Merrick and Mikes guidance throughout the process of becoming a client. The SRS team delivered on every promise during the course of our relationship. I could not be happier.

Jimmy Smith

19:48 26 Jul 19

The team that worked with us made the process easy. They are knowledgeable and informative. We understood our options of various products available to us. The team was professional and answered all questions in a timely fashion. We will readily recommend Secure Retirement Strategies to others.

Carol Taraska

23:48 25 Jul 19

Mike and the SRS team are attentive, honest and genuinely care for their client's needs. They have shown patience and understanding with our questions, by taking the time to give us a thorough review with our investments and their recommendations have performed as they promised.Wonderful to deal with.

Rita Blasko

23:03 09 Jul 19

Michael Neft, our agent, and the entire team at Secure Retirement Strategies have been so wonderful to work with. We have peace of mind about our financial future. We would recommend Secure Retirement Strategies to friends and family. They are always available to answer any questions we may have.

Theresa Clauss

22:50 22 Apr 19

My husband and I are so happy that we found SRS. We have been tired of losing money in our retirement accounts and wanted security and this is where we found it! Fred, Lou and Tom have been very helpful and patient with our questions and explanation of various plans and finding the best ones to fit our needs. We both feel more at ease with our financial future. A big thank you to the whole team!